We have a topic!: Elevation and Flight

I haven't been too active on the ideas front recently. This is a combination of lacking free time and managing eye strain. But I have been thinking on the existing threads and how to continue them. One nice thing to have is space to reflect on what has already been discussed. During these periods of "idle thoughts" your mind tends to fly and land in strange places.

So I was thinking "hmm what have we not talked about?" and what did I think of first? Stairs. To the best of my knowledge there has been no talk of terrain elevation and movement on the Z axis. When I realized that I started to think of what such a mechanic could add to the game, in all aspects of gameplay.

For example, Combat. Unless you are fighting a foe that can fly, elevated terrain gives you every advantage over enemies who occupy lower terrain. In missile combat elevation gives you a range bonus and limited cover against direct fire weapons. In melee combat elevation will slow down enemies assaulting your position and give you a boost in speed when charging downhill.

And what about the world, terrain? We already know that cities will be build tile by tile but imagine if those tiles occupied terrain of different heights. Imagine building a steppe city into the side of a mountain. Multiple levels of cityscape linked by a "grand stair" or a zigzagging road. Mountaintop citadels linked together by giant bridges, the possibilities are endless You could organize the inner workings of your city so that passage between tiles can only be obtained in special patterns. Colonize a titanic hill and force your enemies to fight thier way up to the top over a giant spiral shaped roadway. Every step they take would be under a hail of fire from the defenders on the higher levels. And what about sieging such cities? Tunnel up that hillside and attack from beneath. Build giant siege towers to bridge vertical gaps.

Well, in MoM the flying trait just made it so that land units could not directly attack them. You could always be counter attacked though. (and you had no terrain hazzards that could slow a flying unit) What else do you suggest?

I think a combat bonus to having "higher ground" is a must, especially if terrain features like hills are going to be featured prominantly. I guess that is my main problem with Heroes of Might and Magic battlefields, the only thing that really mixes things up is there is occationally impassable terrain or a castle seige. Castle seiges are awesome, but regular battles are pretty flat and boring. I'd like to see all sorts of natural terrain features (not too many that you never have a regular battle, but every once in a while). MoM at least had natural rough-terrain that slowed movement and other such similar features.

I really like the multihieight city. I was thinking about this when I was trying to figure out how to mimic Minith tirrith from lord of the rings (namely that sexy cliff face).

Yes elevation needs to be a high priority! (I am so sorry, so very very sorry for the bad pun!)

Also in combat - it looks like combat is going to happen when opposing units enter the same square - I think there should be "opportunity fire" when a unit moves into an adjacent square and the army holds the high ground or a fortified position. This would not require zooming in to tactical combat, but if an enemy tries to get past my fort or my catapult on a hill, I should get the chance to "harrass as they pass" without taking damage myself. Of course I think I would need to have ranged units in the square to be able to do this.

On second thought, not necessarily. If I had cavalry it also makes sense that they could run out on their flank as they passed, do a blitzkrieg harrassing manuever on the enemies flank and run back into the fort. Doable? Worth the effort? I think so!

I personally dont like it when land units are unable to do any at all damage to flying units, for example in Empire Earth I had a squadron of riflemen that would be anhilated by a choper, I mean couldnt they just fire at the chopper, they have gund no? so I would like for flying units to have a great bonus over land and no range units, but not for them to be unvincible for the fact that they are flying and the other unit doesnt have the brain power to just trhow them the sword to the face.

Flight should have limits based on what grants the capability. If your form of flight is magical then you can maintain it so long as you have power or mana or whatever. If flight is granted from a natural ability, such as having wings, then it would be limited by stamina. Same goes for units using flying mounts. Flight range should be limited both in terms of distance and altitude. If you have the energy you could fly upwards to scale a cliff or fly a certain distance over land.

So its not that flying units simply can't move over ocean. Its just a question of whether or not they have the stamina to reach the opposite shore.

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Should we measure the altitude that flight takes place? Altitude stats would be needed if we implemented any kind of terrain elevation. It would have affects on all parts of the game.

For example if you wanted to attack ground troops, instead of mounting archers onto pegasus mounts you could mount any random mook and give him a big bucket full of arrows. If dropped from a sufficient height then those arrows will eventually reach terminal velocity to devastating effect on impact. In fact you could skip the arrows altogether and give them a cheaper bucket of rocks.

If flight is achieved by some form of wings then you open the possibility of gliding. Gliding is unpowered flight and very efficient in terms of energy over distance. This would mean that giant eagles leaping off the side of a mountain would be able to glide very far before they would resort to powered flight. This would let them move much farther than they would be able to had they taken off fromt he ground.

1) Flying units limited on traveling over large bodies of water, tar or lava based on their size. Hence a sparrow or bat should not be allowed to cross an ocean.

I would say that they couldn't enter "ocean" just as small vessels in Civ IV couldn't.

Well we wouldn't want to prevent ships near the shore from being immune thus I was thinking size one could travel 2 water squares, size two could travel 4 water squares, size three could travel 7 water squares, size four could travel 10 water squares, size five could travel 14 squares, etc., etc., .

I think that flying units should be able to fly anywhere and everywhere, with the one restriction being that they have to end each turn on solid ground. Perching atop a high mountain top that's inaccessible to non-flying units should be just fine (like in AoW), but ending a turn in the middle of a lake should be a no-no. That said there could be some exceptions - particularly hardy or magical flying units could be able to fly for multiple turns without 'resting', or in extreme cases maybe even indefinitely.

Flight should have limits based on what grants the capability. If your form of flight is magical then you can maintain it so long as you have power or mana or whatever. If flight is granted from a natural ability, such as having wings, then it would be limited by stamina. Same goes for units using flying mounts. Flight range should be limited both in terms of distance and altitude. If you have the energy you could fly upwards to scale a cliff or fly a certain distance over land.

I really like the idea of flight distance depending on elevation gradients. Like you said if a flying unit starts off from a mountaintop it'll get farther than normal (the base value could be based on max movement over flat terrain); while on the other hand, if a flying unit starts off from the ocean shore and heads up to higher terrain it won't get as far.

I'm also in favor of melee ground units being unable to directly attack flying units while they're in-flight, but able to counterattack. Additionally, ranged units should have to be closer (horizontally) to flying units than grounded units in order to be in range (and being in flight should provide a range bonus to mounted archers). I'd also like there to be some incentive for some ranged units to land during combat, though. For example, they can be more vulnerable to ranged attacks while in flight (their underbellies are exposed), and maybe deal more damage from the ground.

Being able to create steppe-cities as due to local terrain would be really cool. I actually had the same thought a while ago when I drove through a very hilly area with settlements going up the sides of hills, but I couldn't really put the idea into words other than "I want hill cities!" Having local terrain affect the layout and even certain non-aesthetic properties of settlements would be awesome. And breaking out of the mold and letting us build mountain cities would be sweet! They'd have massive defensive bonuses, but they would be almost entirely dependent on imported food, meaning the most effective way to deal with such a city would be to block said imports.

Flight might also be effected my elevation. "low flying" things like hot-air balloons and birds might not be able to get over mountains, where high-flying things like wind dragons and the flying cities that exist far above the clouds could.

In Warhammer, many flying units have the power to 'fly high' above the battle field where they are effectivly removed from the field for a short period of time (too high for archery fire), then they can come down where ever they want the next turn. Would something like that also work for some creatures in E:war?

The baby-picture screenshots show 3D-looking terraing, but best I can tell no unit or improvement objects appear to be at different Z-axis points. Here's hoping that's something the engine is growing out of.

The dragon in one of those shots has wings, which makes me think the devs are at least trying for something by way of flight in the combat system.

But I'm almost more interested in whether we'll be able to use Air magic to equip regular units, or at least champion units, with something like flying carpets, skyboats, airwalking boots, etc. If we can't do that, any flight stuff will be less fun that it could be, IMO. (And yes, I'm still beating the drums for a serious chunk of info on the current state of the magic system.)

Hmm, I designed a basic system to show how this could work. I think its simple enough that I could draw most of it in Paint which would save me and the rest of you from yet another wall o text.

At its core its about assigning some arbitrary measurement to levels of elevation. This could be as simple as designating sea level "level 1" and atop a small hill "level 2". This is the minimum required in order to have variance terrain elevation and a flight ceiling.

EDIT: Okay here it is.

We know that cities will be built in tiles. Square tiles mean we can configure those same tiles into an isometric system. This means that the tiles become blocks, and those blocks can be set at various heights. To demonstrate this I have drawn a picture. This is a diagram of an isometric terrain system. Brown represents "sea level" or Level 1. Green is terrain at Level 2. The orange parts mark the changes in elevation, they take the form of slopes set at various angles. Now its important to note that the gameworld would never actually look this jaggy. This is simply the best 2d mockup I could draw.

Isometric systems that implement elevation but do not include ramps are quite possible. However such systems abstract how units move from one level to another. Often the scale is such that units can simply step or jump up onto higher tiles. However at Elemental city scale this does not work. We need to have some tangible way for our units and citizens to move from one level to another. One way of doing this is adding slopes. A slope is a tile which has its surface set at an angle. In an organic world you would find these all over the place.

-Figure A demonstrates a very gradual slope. This kind of slope is shallow, wheeled and foot traffic would have no trouble moving up and down. If you were to build houses and other buildings here you would simple have to cut a flat area into the slope in order to have square foundations. At city scale a slope of this type would have very little effect on how you could plan your cityscape.

-Figure B shows a steeper slope. Now at this angle movement up the slope starts to take serious effort. Foot traffic will be slightly slowed, but you can compensate by building stairs. Wheeled vehicles would have no trouble, you would simply need a bit of extra power to go uphill. Buildings can still be set into slopes like these, the "stairstep" effect will simply become more pronounced.

-Figure C shows a severe slope. At this angle traffic will have a lot of trouble getting uphill. Stairs will be able to direct foot traffic straight up the slope. However for heavier traffic you would have to zigzag a road up the slope using a series of switchbacks. Building houses on this kind of slope will result in a steppe neighborhood.

-Figure D shows a steep slope. Stairs can still be built straight up the slope. However the angle will be very steep and the stairs would not be very safe. At this point landings will become useful. Road traffic can still be moved up this kind of slope, however the switchbacks must be so close together that putting a road here would preclude adding buildings. The slope is such that you can not simply clear our some level ground to site a building. Instead a traditional building would have to be mounted wholly or partially on stilts. Alternatly you can dig into the slope and use caves to reclaim some buildable space from the hillside.

- Figure E is a sheer cliff face. If you were to build stairs here they would resemble a typical fire escape, a rectangular spiral staircase with many landings. Wheeled traffic would have to head elsewhere and there is essentially no buildable space. However it is still possible to built suspended platforms or dig into the cliff face.

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Now these slopes represent a tiny tiny fraction of the terrain variance we have to play with. The question is, what benefit can we derive from such a system over just building simple flat cities? The advantages are twofold:

We can build cities (and forts/towers/great walls etc) in places where there is not enough room for a traditional flat cityscape.

We can shape the terrain to our advantage and to the disadvantage of others.

Your post makes me think of Roller Coaster tycoon's landscape powers. It was actually pretty complex in the number of different slopes you could have (since it could have more complex shapes than your slanted A)

You could also build a weighted elevator on that cliff. They've had those a long long time. Cranes and such back in ancient greek times used the same pully and weight concept anyway. So in a world of magic, it is reasonable over a steep flight of stairs. The stairs could also spiral to be much less steep and safer, which is how I recall gandalf got up to the top tower of minith tirith (using the first on-a-cliff city that came to mind)

Anyone else want an elevation system that enables multi-level underground placement of improvement tiles? Something about this thread has me really hankering to build a Hidden City inside a mesa, with obvious entrances only on the mesa top, some concealed access down at the foot, and maybe a few murderholes sprinkled along the wraparound trail that outsiders use to reach the top.

Those two things are exactly what I had in mind. Terrain editing like what you can do in Rollercoaster Tycoon combined with the tunneling and other options from Dwarf Fortress.

Even with a very limited palette of shapes it is still possible to create very advantageous terrain. For example, if you were building a military fort out in the middle of flatland nowhere it would be helpful to modify the terrain to give you a defensive bonus:

Now realistically speaking this fort would also include an extensive dry moat. All of the dirt required to raise that mound had to come from somewhere of course. It was simply too much work to draw!

The defensive advantage is obvious. The ramparts provide protection and a range bonus to any missile troops who defend them. The enemy must navigate a severe slope before they even reach the walls and at this angle of terrain humans would have to use thier arms as much as thier legs. This of course precludes holding a shield or using a weapon. And that is after they get over the moat. The gatehouse is a hardened section of wall which is double the height of the rest of the ramparts. This makes it harder for the enemy to scale it with a ladder or other siege device. The slope outside the gate is gradual but it slows anyone assaulting the gate. Its easy to image the extra effort required to push a battering ram up a slope and keep it there while it rams the gate.

You have pobably noticed the green dots. These are spacers that allow the use of coordinates to place lines. without too much trouble I could replace each tile you see above with a 4x4 grid. Even with the current level of detail I was able to produce this fort, so imagine what we could do if I made this simulation 4 times more detailed. And its not even 3d!

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It was mentioned that the design and placement of your city tiles would have a great effect on things like commerce and combat. Elevation is the kind of thing we need to make this concept truly great. I could go into exaustive detail on cities alone but all you really need to do is examine these pictures to get the gist of it.

I'm going to basically repeat myself and say that I really love this idea of elevation and settlements. It would make settlements much more interesting, and open up the possibilty of truly unique cities. I want to be able to make my very own Gondolin!

Anyone else want an elevation system that enables multi-level underground placement of improvement tiles? Something about this thread has me really hankering to build a Hidden City inside a mesa, with obvious entrances only on the mesa top, some concealed access down at the foot, and maybe a few murderholes sprinkled along the wraparound trail that outsiders use to reach the top.

I agree. I'm not holding my breath for a feature like this but it would be really awesome. I'd at least like there to be a tunneling system, so if I do find a ring-shaped mountain rang I can make my own tunnel through to the center and build a city there. And if we can build tunnels, we should also be able to collapse them. But yeah, being able to build settlements under certain terrain would be awesome (it could be limited to building under things like mountains and hills, even). Kingdom under the Mountain!

I'd be interested to know if things like this could be done with the engine as it stands, whether or not it's actually implemented. If the engine can handle it but stardock doesn't work it in, then modders might stand a reasonable chance of making it work.

Edit: Here's a picture of Gondolin, for those who don't know. It was an ancient elven city in LoTR hidden by a ring of mountains and accessible only via a hidden passage through the mountains. Enemies couldn't really even climb over the mountains if they wanted to, because the Eagles made their homes in the mountains and stopped any would-be tresspassers.

So in terms of combat what affect does elevation have on combat? There are a couple main points that I can see, maybe you guys can spot a few more.

The first obvious point is movement. Going down will always be easier than going up. How quickly terrain changes in elevation affects how units move over it. A very gradual slope will not hinder most units. A 50 foot sheer cliff face will stop almost anyone in thier tracks. If units have any sort of "move points" or "stamina" then moving uphill will always take more energy than moving over flat ground, vice versa when moving downhill. The shape and severity of elevation chances also affect what units can surmount them. Most humans will not have any trouble climbing an upright ladder, but you wouldn't be able to say the same thing about a bear.

The second point is sight. Higher elevations allow you to see more and farther. Go high enough and the horizon will actually appear to move away from you, increases your field of vision. A sentry standing 50 feet above the ground in a tree will see far more than a sentry hiding in a foxhole for example.

The third point is cover. Simply being on higher terrain can hide you from the sight and weapons of an enemy below you. This applies to all terrain but it is most apparent with things like battlements and cliff faces.

The fourth point is missile range and power. Elevation grants a bonus to maximum range because projectiles have a longer time to fall. Unless you fire a missile straight down, having more time to fall will always result in the missile landing father from its launch site. As well time spent falling is time spend accelerating. It takes a powerful launcher to fire a missile at or over its terminal velocity, given room to accelerate even weak missiles can build up dangerous amounts of energy. If you were defending a wall hundreds of feet high, you could defeat enemy climbers with something as simple as a bucket of pebbles.

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The question now is how much of these effects do we want to implement into a game setting. And to what degree should they affect gameplay. Obviously some degree of abstraction is needed but how far should we go?

The concept of elevation tiers reminds me of Squad Leader and Advanced Squad Leader. Hex board games I always wanted to master but could never find anyone to play a game with - or get my head wrapped around the billion-page long rule books. I'm exaggerating... but only slightly.

But line-of-sight concepts in the game were awesome and actually pretty easy to implement in gameplay. A hex tile's terrain + any structure represented some elevation value between 0 (lowest elevation) and 3 (a high hilltop with a building). You took a broken rubber band and lined up the center of the hexagon that the attacker unit was in with the center of the hex where the defender lay. If something with a higher elevation than either of those two points lay between the two units, then the LOS was blocked and you couldn't attack directly (you could attack with mortars or off-board artillery as indirect fire - but I digress). Anyway, I always enjoyed LoS and elevation in my turn based games. Some bonuses and penalties relating to elevation include what was mentioned by Tamren, but a critical flaw in reasoning lay here:

Simply being on higher terrain can hide you from the sight and weapons of an enemy below you.

The flaw in reasoning is this: If they can't see you, you can't see them. So simply being on higher terrain - serving as an LoS blocker - works both ways.

I'd also nit-pick a bit about missle range. It's true that arrows or what-not may fly farther if you're shooting from a height. But that consideration neglects the concept of 'effective range'. An arrow (for example) in free-fall after being shot from the top of Mt. Everest may not be carrying as much energy as required to be effective against it's target. Sure, you can put an eye out from that arrow after falling 2 miles or whatever (I suppose) but probably not so much if your target is wearing an armored helm. So I'd ask: How much farther would you add to a unit's effective range based on elevation differences? How much would you subtract from the unit's effective range if firing from a lower elevation?

Extending range based upon elevation factors should also take into consideration the concept of 'aiming'. I've shot in archery tournements and can serve as witness that hitting my mark at 90 meters was an exercise that involved The Force or something - because it's not like I could see the bull's eye very clearly at that range. Or much at all. Shooting at what would look like ants to me from a crenellated wall atop a castle constructed atop a hill ... Not sure how accurate I'd be. This isn't much of a concern to me though, at least not as much as the LoS issue described above, as I'd fully expect the game to abstract such trifles.

The flaw in reasoning is this: If they can't see you, you can't see them. So simply being on higher terrain - serving as an LoS blocker - works both ways.

Right, and the same goes for lower terrain. Sitting in a foxhole will hide you from people at ground level.

The key here is that blocking the LOS of enemies shooting up is much easier than blocking the LOS of enemies shooting downwards. If two archers were shooting at each other, one from on top of a tall building, the other from the ground. The archer up top could simply take a step backwards and sit down to be safe from all direct fire missiles. Assuming flat ground and no other objects around besides the building, the man on the ground is completetly exposed and has nowhere to hide. The only different between the two is thier relative elevations, yet the man standing higher up has a significant advantage.

I'd also nit-pick a bit about missle range. It's true that arrows or what-not may fly farther if you're shooting from a height. But that consideration neglects the concept of 'effective range'.

Even if you both sides are armed with identical weapons, the side with an elevation bonus will have a much longer maximum range. This means that they can begin to shoot (and hit) at ranges where the enemy is not capable of firing back. How much of this effective range bonus you can use depends entirely on the skill of your archers, but this is an advantage by any measure.

An arrow (for example) in free-fall after being shot from the top of Mt. Everest may not be carrying as much energy as required to be effective against it's target.

That depends, whether or not a projectile will recieve a damage bonus from elevation is decided by the speed at which the projectile is launched. An object launched at a speed below its terminal velocity will accelerate up to that limit. An object launched at a higher speed than its terminal velocity will eventually slow down to its maximum, at a rate determined by its level of aerodynamic drag. In ballistic terms, elevation equates to "free" potential energy. Harnessing that energy is just a matter of designing your weapons properly.

So I'd ask: How much farther would you add to a unit's effective range based on elevation differences? How much would you subtract from the unit's effective range if firing from a lower elevation?

This depends entirely on the ballistic arc of whatever missile your units are firing. Arrows fired in high arcs will not recieve as much of a benefit from elevation as crossbow bolts fired in short wide arcs. But then direct fire weapons like the crossbow are far less effective at engaging higher targets.

Extending range based upon elevation factors should also take into consideration the concept of 'aiming'. I've shot in archery tournements and can serve as witness that hitting my mark at 90 meters was an exercise that involved The Force or something

Damn right. At my local archery range the target faces are wooden frames about 7 feet tall and 5 wide. The biggest tournament standard bullseye target is about 4x4 feet. I'm not that good, but I once tried to shoot at 90 meters just for fun. Out of 18 arrows I managed to get one hit on the frame... of the next target over. The rest of my arrows landed in a big 40 foot wide cluster.

Ranged warfare on the army scale is all about firing big thick clouds of arrows at the enemy. These are none too accurate, the emphasis is placed on rate of fire rather than individual accuracy. But when the enemy soldiers are packed into tight formations of 100 soldiers or more hits are almost guaranteed. If you zoom down to the squad level of 20 archers or less, then the focus changes to accuracy because every shot counts for more.

I think we're in the same ballpark, but differ perhaps in terms of the degree by which elevation impacts a combat result. I get the impression that you would prefer elevation to have a larger impact on an outcome of a combat round than I would. But that's ok, because I have exactly zero indication about how this game will organize a game turn, what variables are involved in movement and combat, or anything else that would lend itself to an informed opinion about the relative impact of elevation on unit movement and combat.

One thing I think we can agree on is that elevation should play a role in movement and combat. Thus giving players something else to think about when placing structures and fortifications, and when planning out attacks on hilltop castles.

On the separate topic of flight, I'd like to see flying units as well - but I'd like to see them *very* limited in terms of overall unit power. Perhaps they are limited because it takes a large amount of resources and time to create a flying unit. Perhaps they're limited by virtue of being easily shot out of the sky by hordes of longbowmen. Whatever the gating mechanism, I just want to see strong limits placed upon them. The reason behind this preference is that I don't like games where all but a couple of units become obsolete. As in, once you complete the pre-requisites for obtaining flying units, you don't need to make many of the other kinds of units. I would love to see this game system developed to the point where even the lowliest/cheapest unit still has a role to play in a larger mixed-force battle.

I'd probably rather see flying units benefit a player in terms of strategy - perhaps as scout/observers that grant some combat bonus by virtue of their presence on (or above) the battlefield. Think: WWI Balloon Observers (where artillery teams benefitted by the balloonatics serving as spotters). Perhaps that's a key role of flying units in Elements - they provide an attack bonus to indirect fire units (like catapult or trebuchet units). But I'd hate to see flying units unbalanced and sitting at the top of the food chain. I prefer a system where even the lowest level/cost units still get to play some valid (but perhaps reduced) role as a game unfolds.

[Adding: In addition to elevation and terrain, I'd like to see weather have an impact. Maybe. Ok, I'm on the fence about this. But I do think it might be interesting to have flying units 'grounded' (or severely limited in capability) in the event of inclement weather. Military strategists might consider weather and terrain as two of the most critical aspects of logistics and planning for any troop movement or encounter. It *might* be interesting to see that implemented in Elements. Again, I'm on the fence though as to whether (ha ha) or not weather would add anything meritorious to the actual gameplay experience. I suppose it would depend upon the implementation.

For moment, going downhill is easier than going uphill. This will grants units a defensive bonus against melee enemies fighting uphill. As well units moving downhill will be able to build up more momentum and be sucessful in charge attacks.

For missile weapons, elevation will always increase the maximum range of your weapons relative to the ground. Using the mount everest example, if you measured the mountainside as linear distance then an arrow that flies from the peak to the base will have traveled a very long distance. How much this adds to effective range depends on the skill of the archer.

For missile weapon damage, it depends entirely on the properties of the weapon used.

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All of those concepts are relatively easy to grasp and implement, so we can now move on to flight.

On the separate topic of flight, I'd like to see flying units as well - but I'd like to see them *very* limited in terms of overall unit power.... Whatever the gating mechanism, I just want to see strong limits placed upon them.

Makes sense. The fact that a unit can fly at all has a profound effect on how it performs. Generally speaking:

Pros:

Flying units can't be engaged by melee units on the ground and missile troops have a hard time shooting them down. Flying units above a certain altitude are immune to ground missile fire.

Flying units gain a massive bonus to sight range but may need optical aids (or just good natrual eyesight) to spot small units on the ground.

All flying units are capable of attacking units on the ground by carrying objects up into the air and dropping them.

Flying units ignore difficult ground terrain and can fly over obstacles such as mountains. Ridiculously high mountains will still block them however.

Units with gliding capability can move great distances for little effort.

Cons:

A unit that runs out of power to maintain level flight or loses the capability will drop like a stone and die on impact.

In clear skies flying units essentially have nowhere to hide. Units that fly above the cloud layer may get lost.

Flying units require a minimum amount of safe and clear ground for landing and takeoff.

Flying units tire far quicker than ground troops.

Bad weather will ground fliers and may injure or kill fliers already in the air.

Flying units are very limited in the weigh they can carry, as a result most are poorly armoured if at all.

Its easy to see that flying units will be very specialized and limited. There are a couple general categories of flying units that I can think of:

Attack fliers: These would be creatures like giant eagles. Units of this type are capable of attacking other fliers in melee or missile combat. With the addition of a saddle attack fliers become attack mounts who augment the skills of the rider with thier own natural attacks.

Transport mounts: These are mounts that exist to taxi a rider around the battlefield. Transport mounts could be used with archers to create mobile missile platforms, or they could fly to a battle and allow the rider to engage in melee combat on the ground.

Platforms: Platforms would be things like floating castles, hot air baloons and blimps. Basically anything that can create useable flat ground in midair. This type of unit is by far the most adaptable.

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Its easy enough to imagine how fliers would attack each other in midair. What needs a lot more thought is how flying units would interact with and support units on the ground.

In addition to elevation and terrain, I'd like to see weather have an impact. Maybe. Ok, I'm on the fence about this. But I do think it might be interesting to have flying units 'grounded' (or severely limited in capability) in the event of inclement weather.

Weather is a whole new topic that hasn't had much discussion here from what I have seen. Weather would affect all aspects of combat and industry.

Whatever the gating mechanism, I just want to see strong limits placed upon them. The reason behind this preference is that I don't like games where all but a couple of units become obsolete. As in, once you complete the pre-requisites for obtaining flying units, you don't need to make many of the other kinds of units.

I don't think this is the right outlook to take. I agree completely that once you complete the pre-requisites for obtaining flying units you should still need to make all or at least most of the other types of units. That said, there are lots of ways to go about doing that without relegating flying units to just being scouts or whatnot. The best way to do it imo is to make it difficult to obtain flyings units in large numbers. Based on what we know about how special creatures will be obtained, this can just be as simple as making it very difficult to get a sizable steady supply of flying creatures. This way flying units can still be powerful units with plenty of advantages over most other types of units without obsoleting any other units. Obviously they would have some disadvantages as well.

That said, I think flying units should be as diverse as regular ones. They should range from small birds used solely for scouting all the way to dragons.

Weather is a whole new topic that hasn't had much discussion here from what I have seen. Weather would affect all aspects of combat and industry.

There is a whole thread about weather here, and it's pretty long. It even delves into effects on combat a little. Details are a little premature, though, until we have some idea of how combat is going to work and of what stats will be available for things like weather to affect.

I'm Floridian, but I've spent some time in various parts of the Appalachians. Maybe it's just my flatlander legs, but I could swear that once ground became steep enough, it was *far* easier to climb up than it was to go down because gravity was helping me keep my footing, not trying to flip me over my excuse for a 'center' and make the descent very rapid and completely uncontrolled.

going downhill is easier than going uphillI'm Floridian, but I've spent some time in various parts of the Appalachians. Maybe it's just my flatlander legs, but I could swear that once ground became steep enough, it was *far* easier to climb up than it was to go down because gravity was helping me keep my footing, not trying to flip me over my excuse for a 'center' and make the descent very rapid and completely uncontrolled.

Yeah but in that case the army you're charging is stull f@##ed. An avalanche of bodies would probably hurt at least as much as those same bodies in control of themselves. Although the charging army would probably suffer much higher casualties than otherwise...